The Historical Process, from a very methodical preschooler

Last night at dinner, Ian was asking me if I remembered a time that he was riding in the car with me and he was singing a car about rainbows. In the same way that grown-ups might remember what years they lived and worked in particular places based on historical and political events that took place in that setting, Ian lined up four very concrete points of reference to zero in on the time that he had that singing-in-the-car experience:

1. "I was four" [he's five now].
2. He "didn't have" his current preschool (he was in a different preschool last year).
3. We "lived in that yellow house" [the house we live in now is not yellow].
4. "The t.v. was working" [the DVD player has been broken for about five days now...].

I was extremely impressed that he found four different sets of coordinates to date the experience that he was trying to re-capture; it's a very grown-up way of grappling with events, with wonderfully five-year-old points of rererence...

(March 15, 2009)